1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to a touch panel, and more particularly to a touch electrode device with insulating blocks and insulating lines.
2. Description of Related Art
A touch screen is an input/output device that adopts sensing technology and display technology, and has been widely employed in electronic devices such as portable or hand-held electronic devices.
A capacitor-based touch panel is a commonly used touch panel that utilizes capacitive coupling effect to detect touch position. Specifically, capacitance corresponding to the touch position changes and is thus detected, when a finger touches a surface of the touch panel.
FIG. 1 shows a top view of a conventional touch panel 200 disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,188,391. The conventional touch panel 200 is composed of vertical electrode lines 21 and horizontal electrode lines 22. Elongated insulating blocks 23 are used to electrically insulate the vertical electrode lines 21 from the horizontal electrode lines 22. The width of the elongated blocks 23, however, is so wide that light transmittance of the touch panel 200 is disadvantageously reduced. Further, trace phenomenon may occur to impact visual appearance when users look at the touch panel 200.
A need has thus arisen to propose a novel touch electrode device to overcome deficiencies of the conventional touch panels.